Bentrepreneur sat down with People’s Choice Awardee and co-founder of Alrawi at the recently concluded Pitch at the Palace competition to talk about her business inspiration, how media is the change creator and where will her consultancy Beyond Borders take her next.

Innovation – Alrawi Media is an award winning audiobook application specializing in Arabic books. Can you tell us the thought process behind this app?

While reading books is an important activity people should consider adding to their daily or even weekly tasks. One, however, cannot deny our attention span has significantly gone down, with new things popping out every few seconds online. Additionally, people can get super busy and stressed out trying to balance their work and social life whilst trying to be healthy. The idea of reading a book completely slips out from their minds. Alrawi launched as an application in November 2017 when three Bahrainis realized that there’s a significant gap in Arabic content available.The three co-founders Hala Sulaiman, Ameera AlQubaiti and Mohamed Ebrahim decided to launch an online and digital platform with an app of high-quality Arabic audiobooks and content with the aim of creating an e-community to convert books into interactive audio books. It is based on building a growing network of narrators consisting of broadcasters and voice-over talents who record readings of works of literature and other fields to create a digital library of audiobooks accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Through Alrawi, we hope to build more culturally aware and educated generations. Alrawi also has great features for special needs that include a Voice-over Service that helps special needs people navigate through the Alrawi app. Alrawi doesn’t only provide bookworms with a chance to listen to their favorite books, it also creates a network of publishers, book authors, narrators, producers, artists and studios, which will eventually form an e-marketplace for the audio publishing sector. In addition to their ever growing list of publishers, we have signed some strategic partnerships providing thrilling and educational books to listen to. One of them is with Qindeel Educational, a knowledge affiliate of the Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. These partnerships allow Alrawi users to gain access to the summaries of the world’s best sellers in business, entrepreneurship, education and personal development in audio format — a perfect solution for busy bees who can’t listen to the entire book.

Role of Media: You have had vast experience in the media industry, what would you say is the role of media in the economy at the present time?

Media and the knowledge economy is the change creator.

You are a media and communications veteran, entrepreneur, philanthropist—a champion of knowledge and self-improvement. In addition to Alrawi you have started your own consultancy. Where has Beyond Borders taken you?

Beyond Borders Consultancy was established in September 2016 offering strategic management and communication services. The consultancy based in the Kingdom of Bahrain reflects my expertise of 25 years in the fields of strategic management and communication and the launching of start-ups in both the public and private sectors.

Beyond Borders Consultancy has a strong alliance with a wide network of specialized professionals and consultants in the various industries and sectors. It focuses on designing and developing special projects related to project management, market research and studies, in addition to consultancy services in the field of communication which includes but is not limited to media training, public relations, internal communication strategies and best practice, branding and audit perception, local and regional media relations, TV production, positioning and developing publications and has a special unit taking care of translation and interpretation services.

Beyond Borders Consultancy has an ever growing Portfolio which includes UNICEF, UNDP, Bahrain Bourse, BIBF, Ministry of Finance, APICORP, Ministry of Interior, Council of Representatives, AFS, Delmon(Hayat) Rehabilitation Centre, SICO and Falak Consulting. The focus is on quality and long -term collaborations and working on projects “Beyond any Borders”.

We have recently gone on air with Emirates Airlines with our Arabic Audio Books “for its 70 million passengers per year” and more agreements are coming up with Gulf Air and other regional and international airlines. Alrawi is also an award winning application having won several awards and prizes such as the Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Young Business Leaders for the Best Startup in the Arab World in January 2018 and most recently it has won Pitch@ Palace founded by HRH the Duke of York Prince Andrew. We won Global People’s Choice Award held in the United Kingdom in December 2018 after winning the Bahrain and GCC rounds.